Nuremberg eggs
Encyclopedia
Peter Henlein
made watches in Nuremberg
at the beginning of the sixteenth century and these are commonly called Nuremberg eggs. This name is regarded as a myth, resulting from a mistranslation of a sentence in Rabelais. He mentioned little clocks (ueurlein) and "the translator mistook this for eierlein, little eggs".
As the translator would have been reading the French text he could not have misinterpreted the French word (perhaps montre or petite horloge). Either he wrote eierlein erroneously (which is unlikely) or the mistake was made by the German typesetter misreading the hand-written text.
Peter Henlein
Peter Henlein , a locksmith and watchmaker from Nuremberg, is often considered the inventor of the portable timekeeper, making him the inventor of the watch, but this claim is disputed...
made watches in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
at the beginning of the sixteenth century and these are commonly called Nuremberg eggs. This name is regarded as a myth, resulting from a mistranslation of a sentence in Rabelais. He mentioned little clocks (ueurlein) and "the translator mistook this for eierlein, little eggs".
As the translator would have been reading the French text he could not have misinterpreted the French word (perhaps montre or petite horloge). Either he wrote eierlein erroneously (which is unlikely) or the mistake was made by the German typesetter misreading the hand-written text.